The Fury and Cries of Women by Angele Rawiri

It's hard to be invested in Hayley's budding romance with fellow student Finn when neither character is well-developed enough to care about. This impacts the two main narratives as well. It means that there is no additional wisdom or complexity to her thoughts. It means that while we're shown a lot about her life, it cannot be explored. What are her motivations? What does she like? Why does she like what she likes? This is a chiaracter with baggage galore, but no real personality. Even Hayley, our narrator and main girl, feels underwritten. These are two examples, but they stem from the same underlying problem: The Impossible Knife of Memory is populated by thinly drawn characters. Later in the book, we see Hayley's close friend self-medicating in exactly the way that Hayley describes (ultimately, even Hayley is tempted by the pills) in response to problems at home, but Hayley doesn't reflect on it or wonder at her own ignorance of the struggles other teens are going through. On more than one occasion, she links this behavior with prescription drug abuse.

Hayley is repeatedly critical of her fellow high schoolers' behavior and hypocrisy, that their lives are dull and 'zombie'-like. Similarly, the book makes several references to other struggles young adults might face and their responses to them, but fails to treat it with the expected depth. (And don't get me started on the way the book glosses over abuse and false memories. We only have her response to her father's pain, not her own.

Yet even with these scenes (and those that show Hayley being triggered by a series of different situations), Anderson never actually builds on this idea or how it affects Hayley. Hayley is very much defined by the fact that her memory is full of gaps and we frequently see her crumbling somewhat as a flashback hits. However, Anderson also very clearly shows that Hayley has some form of PTSD as well, yet never expands on it. Hayley's father very clearly has PTSD, and this is well explored.

To begin with, this is a book that misses so many of the opportunities it itself raises to tackle major issues. It's certainly not terrible, but I found myself taking issue with quite a few portions of the novel. It could be that the book just isn't very good, I don't know.

Perhaps writing conventions have shifted just so in the three years since I purchased The Impossible Knife of Memory. Perhaps it's that the book hasn't aged very well. So it was time to visit an author that I loved as a teen, with a novel that - when it had been published - was touted as being an important, powerful novel of PTSD. Except, of course, I enacted a book buying ban on myself to exactly motivate myself to read these older, forgotten books. The Impossible Knife of Memory has been on my shelves for so long, that I honestly wasn't sure I'd ever get around to reading it.

The Fury and Cries of Women by Angele Rawiri